'I'm scared': AP obtains video of deadly arrest of Black man (apnews.com)
The above article is one example of a person reacting to his own past experiences, and those he has seen experienced by others.
Which person am I talking about--the poor man that died scared in police custody? or the police officers?
Batman was a direct result of a city of corruption that led him to watch the death of his parents. But the bad guys, they were also the result of the evil they saw, at the hands of the corrupt city.
It's an old story, the hero and the villain created from the same origin story.
The thin blue line folks will tell you, I'm just doing my job, I shouldn't get hurt doing my job. People just need to do what I tell them. People need to stay calm because I have to make split second decisions based on their actions to keep myself and my fellow officers safe.
Pretty much, saying "gun" if you are not a middle class white man or woman, is the same as pointing a gun at them. That split second is so filled with fear that the shoot, frequently emptying the gun into center body mass from 10 foot or less from the "bad guy".
I know we are seeing more of this because of smart phones and social media and body cams, but are we also seeing more of it because we have all seen more of this?
Is the fear now greater due to the many times we have seen what happens when the police decide to go after a nonwhite person? Are there more high speed chases, more foot chases, more brown folks going "rabbit"---perhaps you prefer "deer in the headlight", frozen, with fear, trying to move slowing so as not to get shot, saying things like "there is a gun in the---(huge and multiple booms go off).
We now have stand your ground in a lot of states. If the police use a no-knock warrant to enter a home, can the residents lawfully shoot them?
Is there a law that officers have a right to put their hands on a person instead of using their words? You know, to turn them around and spread their legs, to shove their head down to get them in the car.
Do officers have a right to yell instead of talk, curse instead of talk, push instead of talk. Do regular citizen not have those same rights?
Getting your respect by making those you interact with fear for their lives is not actually respect.
And guess what, that adrenaline you are working with, the person you are yelling at is dealing with that too.
We don't need Batman and the Joker. We don't need more badass cops. We need Andy of Mayberry. We need Mr. Rogers. We need Officer Friendly, that lives in the neighborhood and helps people when they have problems.
Maybe we can head off the horrible effects of poverty and criminal/police interactions if we start early on more than just making poor kids hate cops young.
